Drama

Ever since I was a young boy in primary school, I always wanted to get involved in drama. But alas! I was always on of the quiet ones and never got picked for anything. Until my final year at Bradley primary school, when the boy playing the villain of our Christmas Play, the Troll King, had to drop out due to illness. I bravely stepped in, played the role with as much entusiasm and gusto a ten year old boy could muster, and since then my enthusiasm for getting involved in drama productions has never wavered.

Of course, that first role didn't enable me to get the parts I wanted, not for a long time. At Grammar school I was again relegated to small, insignificant parts in 501 (which was still great to be involved in) and A Midsummer's Night Dream, in both the years I was there. My enthusiasm waned a little. And then, in year ten I took on drama at GCSE. The school play that year, Bugsy Malone offered me a small part as a gangster but as the play had already been cast in the summer of year nine, the year I started The Queen Elizabeth School, I didn't expect a big role. But in year eleven, that all changed, and I was cast as Ratty, one of the four central characters of Toad of Toad Hall. The costume was one of the best things about it, (see me above as Ratty, with Jenny Collier as Toad) and there were some brilliant scenes, both amongst the four central characters, and amongst the whole cast (see the court scene above left). Even with the drama I've now done at university, Toad of Toad Hall was one of the most enjoyable prodeuctions I have ever been involved with.

Life at college saw me concentrating more on the work involved at drama A-Level, and there was only one actual prod-
uction the whole two years I was there. The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui (below) was great fun, even being a Brecht play. The rise of Hitler told as a story involving gangsters taking over in the 1920's. it was put together in our first 8 weeks at college and bonded our drama group together really well.

And then came uni! The first year was simply about settling in, getting to grips with new areas of theatre and drama and discovering new interests and talents. It was in the first year I got my first real taste in driecting. As part of my module in Technical Studies in Semester B, I did however get involved with a 3rd year production doing lighting. I managed to develop my tech skills and I heard afterwards, that many 3rd years thought the lighting I did for the play was the best in all the productions. (Well, I did my best, I said blushing!) As I started my second year, I felt I wanted to get involved more with productions. Rehearsing from October and performing for four nights at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff from November into December 2001, the UGLY Theatre Company put on a productio of The Dybbuk. A group of about thirteen students, and directed by Sam Boardman Jacobs, it was the third part of the famous Holocaust Trilogy and was performed with the help of others such as Laura Haughey who had with Polish and other European Theatre using lots of physical theatre. It was an amazing experience, exhausting at times and it got to the entire cast emotionally in end. The play, which sees a group of jews cast in a ghetto acting out the legend of the Dybbuk to stay alive before they go off to the concentration camps, was so powerful at times, the ending itself when the characters go to their deaths so emotive that most of the cast would leave the stage after each performance in tears.

The Dybbuk was a good success, and the playwright herself, Julia Pascal went as far as to tell us it was better production than the one she herself had out on years ago. We couldn't get a better compliement than that. The group's involvement with the Dybbuk has not ended with that four night run. In mid march 2002, the Dybbuk is being taken to a European Drama Festival in Huddersfield, and to the Edingborough Fringe Festival in August. All in all, the Dybbuk has been a fascinating and rewarding experience which I shall never forget.

The next production I was involved in was significantly less work for me. The production of ManMade, written by Tim Pass and directed by Carl Smith for their Independent Study was devised purely from workshops and impro and resulting in a great plot and cast and was genuinely funny and tragic. I did lighting for the play, (see me left with Keith who did sound) and it was great to get involved in the tech side once more. (I'm sure Tim will talk about ManMade more on his website-www.geocities.com/comedycue)